Moon Theory (ABO)Ch63 - off-duty, on trial

The room would be pitch dark if not for the muted whites streaming from the entryway, but Noah’s vision has long adjusted. There is usefulness to having heteroclite eyes after all, he thinks, as he sighs softly into the soft fabric of Yang Rong’s (his) tee. The scent is of fresh laundry and vanilla soap – very much unlike the foul chemical smell of those mass-manufactured detergents thrown inside military shelters. Noah finds himself appreciative of how domestic Yang Rong looks in the tight shirt.

Rippling muscles aside, the man is sculpted to be a pageant model and if those are ever to be held again, Noah has little doubt Yang Rong would be runner-up. Points would be deducted, of course, for the man’s lack of integrity, especially when he purposefully flexes his muscles underneath to flaunt. When the both of them are compressed so tightly together like this, Noah feels every dip and every angle of his pectoralis, his abdomen, the line of his thorax… just about everything, really, because Yang Rong is intent on marketing himself even if not explicitly. Chpiz

Noah eases into the embrace and then he’s closing his eyes and planting his cheek onto Yang Rong’s torso, though it may as well be a sedimentary rock with how hard it is. Yang Rong strokes his hair, curling long fingers onto wispy strands, pulling him so close they may as well be joined by the hip. Pure warmth overtakes all else and Noah sighs in contentment, tilting his head for easier access.

“Little kitten,” the man murmurs, “do you feel better?”

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“Mn,” he hums in return with his eyes still closed, “it is really not anything. I was simply playing the piano before you came and distracted me.”

“Hmm?” Yang Rong fondles his ears – Noah is too laggard to care. “Distracted, how?” XUj6du

“Perhaps it is that you look more agreeable without your combat uniform,” Noah says. “The dog tag is a little off-putting, but there are facets of you that are more… unpleasant when donned in full black. I generally do not have good opinions of military men, let alone of alphas like you.”

A low chuckle. “Is that all it takes to appease you? If you dislike it, Rong-ge will strip it off every time. Would you prefer to see me nude, little kitten, even though you’ve averted your eyes this morning?”

“…” Noah shifts in the embrace. “…Colonel Yang, you have an incorrigible way of speech.”

“I think you are simply too shy, little kitten,” the man says with a slight smirk and how Noah can see the smirk without actually seeing it – he doesn’t want to admit how trained he is to pick up the signals at this point. Yang Rong leans down to whisper, no less teasingly, “Even the sounds you made in the shower earlier are—”

“—You.” Noah leans back (as far as he could, anyway, considering how Colonel Yang’s arms are holding him in place) and with an expression of exasperation (and very cleverly disguised fluster), he asks, “Why have you begun to talk like this?”

“Why?” Colonel Yang looks at him and says, very cleanly, “Have I not made it clear enough that I like you, Noah?”

“…” Noah looks away. “You have.”

“Your answer?” dL1EC

“I… have formed several conjectures,” Noah begins, his ears taking on a familiar tinge of pink. Fortunately, the darkness helps shroud. Unfortunately, no trivial details would be missed by Yang Rong, regardless.

“For?”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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“The first… perhaps I’ve found certain camaraderie in you, a hybrid since birth. It is community theory to intuitively bond with those similar to you and as such, it is more systematic and less personal.” Noah trails his sight away to a random tile on the floor. He bites his bottom lip, tugging onto it subconsciously in ponder. A pretty coral blossoms by the vermillion and Yang Rong’s gaze lingers downward.

“The second,” Noah continues, “perhaps my omega physique is instinctively attracted to you, an alpha. In this case, the reasoning is more physiological and less personal as well.”

Another hum. Yang Rong is fully, shamelessly ogling him now, tracing from the pale of his cheeks to the reddened jut of his lips, all his features in fine-grained display. “And the third?”

“The third…” Noah reaches forward and tugs on the colonel’s dog tag, sliding his fingers down metal beads. The material of it is cold to the touch. “Yang Rong, it is only that when I look at you, many complexities jump out at me and none of which I can gauge. At this very moment, you hold less the status of a colonel and more a fugitive on the run. I cannot fathom why you have come along with me and I had believed you to hold foul intentions. Now…” IMozdx

“Now?”

Noah drops the tag and watches the metal hit squarely onto the man’s soft cotton shirt. The contrast is striking. Noah looks up – has to angle his head extra to make up for the height difference – and then says, flustering, “…Now I believe you to hold other more foul intentions.”

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Yang Rong lets out a low chuckle that reverberates through his chest, the timbre hitting lower than bass clef. Noah had long forgotten the spinet piano because in lieu of it is a more distracting, caramel voice that thumps erratically to his ears, throwing him into quandary. The man is still holding him by the waist and a second later, their noses are close enough to touch.

Another second and Yang Rong, leaned forward, whispers with warm breaths, “Then Noah, I am going to kiss you to affirm.” 8XpYfE

Noah has many seconds to reject and to push him away. He doesn’t.

A broad hand snakes through the back of his head and slides in between silver locks of his hair. Another caresses the line of his jaw and tilts him upward to receive. The kiss is incredibly chaste for a man like Yang Rong – he is, after all, so incorrigibly flirtatious that such delicateness is off-putting. His dark lashes flutter downward and as their lips touch, Noah finds himself thinking that… Yang Rong is rather handsome.

Noted, the raven-haired man has always been a looker – tall, muscular, chiseled in all the right places – but tonight, it isn’t so much his physical qualities that are enhanced in dim light. Rather, it’s his charisma, his calm, his soft breathing that hides all aggressiveness, the low hum he gives when Noah reciprocates gently, closing his eyes in tandem.

Magnetic is what comes to mind when Yang Rong gently brushes their lower lips together. The action is so subtle and light that if it weren’t for the familiar (comforting) scent of vetiver, Noah wouldn’t register Yang Rong to be the same military officer who can disable a person with one flick of his wrists. XjvUko

Noah subconsciously curls his fingers on Yang Rong’s chest, scrunching up the fabric of his shirt even when they part. The contact was a fleeting few seconds, and Yang Rong (still so close) looks to him for confirmation.

“And what of your conjecture now?” Yang Rong whispers, his warm breath snaking on the jut of Noah’s lips. Upon hearing no response – just a faint but telling pink on the younger man’s complexion which is again, very well hidden in the dark – Yang Rong gives an attractive, small smirk, leans in again and says sotto voce, “If I kiss you again, will you have a firmer answer?”

Then Yang Rong presses their lips together again – this time, more insistently sliding a palm down the curve of Noah’s back, urging the younger man to arch forward. The colonel, for all his flirtation and arrogance, is unsuspiciously and very expectedly a skilled kisser. Noah is led without resistance, appeased to follow.

A gentle suck on his lower lip turns heated and persistent, Yang Rong angling to lick the spot right above his mole, one hand cradling the base of Noah’s head – and he maneuvers him so well, so expertly that Noah finds himself reciprocating in kind. S7ToGz

Noah thinks he must be insane to be so frenzied even when he isn’t in heat. He remembers their first exchanges in a shabby cottage, a vague memory of them both intertwined not consensually, when his heat had thrown him so off clarity he latched onto the colonel for relief. This time, with little inebriation, Noah leans into warmth, his slender fingers latching onto the broadness of the man’s back, the hardness of his chest.

A low chuckle – “good?” Yang Rong whispers as he reclaims his mouth again – and Noah is absolutely muddled. A light pinch on the dimple of Noah’s lower back prompt a soft gasp, and then Yang Rong takes the opportunity to slide in his tongue, capturing deep enough to render him breathless.

Noah, motion-locked, can only cling onto the man’s collar while letting out kittenish purrs in the back of his throat, craving for more. Yang Rong is all too willing to appease, hungrily intensifying the kiss, sucking and biting on Noah’s lips – there will be rosy residues, for sure. A dribble of saliva trails between them when they part a centimeter.

“Little kitten,” the man whispers with a growing smirk on his face. “If you make that kind of expression, then it is more improbable that you dislike me. Could it be that you cannot get enough of Rong-ge’s technique, hmm?” HY95eJ

The small entranceway casts muted white light into the room, accentuating the side of Noah’s face. He really is abnormally ethereal, what with his snowlike skin, prominent nose and jaw, wispy long lashes that match the dark gray of his neat brows. Sharp and dainty all the same. The tint of coral only makes him more alluring and when he parts his mouth to receive another kiss, Yang Rong just about hauls him out of the seat and on top of the piano.

The thump against the keyboard and the subsequent rough hit of the bass startles Noah slightly – not that he has the time to regain his balance, because Yang Rong claims his mouth once again, ravishing him with such force he can only let out soft gasps and pretty purrs.

“Little kitten,” the man whispers again, staring at him with dark, hooded eyes, “if you continue to make these noises, then there will be an unfortunate escalation.”

There is something guttural and filled with lust in his tone, and when the colonel presses their bodies together, grinds up on him… XtAJEd

Noah immediately recoils backward and pushes the man away.

The piano keys shift in motion, playing out strange discordant sounds. Noah is panting when he’s snapped back to certain alacrity. Colonel Yang stares at him with a mix of surprise, frustration and guilt – more of the latter when he sweeps back his disheveled bangs and lets out a drawn-out sigh.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

“…Fuck,” the colonel says as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I went overboard, didn’t I?”

When the dog tag rests on top of his crumped white shirt, Yang Rong again assumes the aura of a battle-scarred soldier, rugged and poised in his right. It is only that he’d torn (not discarded) his uniform. A single call of his (lost) transceiver and Colonel Yang would drop everything to obey orders. He may be pragmatic enough to send Noah to the breeding facilities without a thought. UDYa1n

Noah thinks he may be afraid of being too attached to a man like this – ruthless hands, dangerous green eyes, hawklike in intensity, yet so magnetic he can’t help but be drawn.

Dangerous.

“…” With downcast, undecipherable eyes, Noah bites his lower lip and whispers, “…I’m sorry.”

Colonel Yang is trying to weigh all the emotions on his face. While Noah’s body language screams aversion, his emotions are something the colonel has yet to unravel. x6ufly

“Noah,” he says, preternaturally quietly, “why have you allowed me to kiss you?”

“I don’t know, Yang Rong,” he murmurs in response. “I do not know how I feel about you.”

“I see,” the colonel replies, his gaze not straying. “Then I will wait.”

“Why…” Noah’s lips purse in complication. “For how long will you… indulge me like this? Our goals do not align. To you, a military alpha, I am but an infected fertile omega due to be sent to the Nexus. We are currently a close distance away from District 39 and in the few days that follow, you may leave to go contact your squad you’ve… inadvertently forlorn.” YIVncB

Silence runs long. Yang Rong has on a rare look of complexity as well – Noah can tell from his blank, slowly blinking eyes, his calmness that doesn’t let a single twitch of emotion show on his face. Ironically, he is too calm it hints of façade. When he finally opens his mouth to speak, the façade breaks only very little.

“I thought I’ve pinpointed how I felt about you, Noah,” he says with a soft semblance of a smile. Distress. “But in the end, your Rong-ge hasn’t thought enough.”

“I see,” Noah repeats his words. He climbs down the piano – again, another discordant strum of keys – and says, without looking the colonel in the eye, “You may leave on your own. I only ask that you keep this shelter a secret and… to unlearn of my existence.”

He makes a turn to leave, but not before Yang Rong takes ahold of his arm – gently, not firmly. The man gives him every volition to pry him off and leave. Noah doesn’t. fV0ug

“Perhaps I’ve…” Yang Rong ponders over his next words. “I’ve become selfish, Noah. I want you and yet, I do not bear any attachment to my military status – it is only that I have gone through this road for so long, that I am uncertain of what to do when I stray.”

“It is never worth it to leave everything behind and be with an anomaly you’ve met for all of one month,” Noah tells him, still not looking him in the eye. “The very thought is blasphemous.”

“…I will calculate whether or not it is worth it,” the man says in response, loosening the grip on his forearm. The next words reverberate deeply in the dark room, carrying with them heavy weight and certain intention. “Until then, Noah, will you allow me to stay for a little longer?”

There is no force of nature that compels Noah to be as defenseless as he is under Yang Rong’s unwavering gaze – emerald green alludes of devotion and resolve, so attractive Noah cannot reject. lNf9t7

“…Alright,” Noah replies. “I will get you another room.”

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.